Lesson 1

“Heaven will not be that unlike our life on this earth.” –Harry Ironside

A. What Is The Basis To Determine What We Will Be Like In Heaven?

1. You will have some characteristics like Jesus on Earth, but remember He is God and you are human.

2. You will have some characteristics like Adam and Eve, but we will not be able to sin. They enjoyed unconfirmed righteousness.

3. You will have some characteristics like angels, but remember they are incorporeal beings and you will have a glorified physical body.

4. You will enjoy some of the things in Heaven that are described in scripture of the millennium.

5. Heaven will have some characteristics of the Garden of Eden.

6. Heaven will have some of the characteristics of the victorious life of believers described in scripture where they overcome sin and their enemies.

7. The description of Heaven is in Rev. 21, 22.

B. What Happens To Me At Death?

1. My physical body decays until I die.

2. My soul and body separate, “As her soul was in departing, (for she died)” (Gen. 35:18).

3. Angels take/escort you to Heaven. “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22).

4. You immediately enter the presence of God. “To be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8).

5. You will become a “spirit being,” with active personality (intellect, emotion, and will).

6. You will be incorporeal (without a body).

C. What Happens To Me At The Resurrection?

1. You will come back bodily with Jesus. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess. 4:14).

2. Your physical and immaterial will be joined to your spirit. “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17).

3. Your body will be transformed. You will have a transformed body-soul that will not be subject to the laws of nature and death. “Who shall change our vile (body of humiliation) body, that we may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).

4. You will be known to Jesus, “Then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

5. You will be recognized by those who knew you on earth.

6. You will have those characteristics in Heaven that portrayed you on Earth. If two people looked similar on earth (i.e., twins), they will look similar in Heaven.

7. How old will I be in Heaven?

a. You will be the age you were converted. “Just as I also am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

b. The age you died.

c. The age Jesus was when He died.

d. The age Adam and Eve were created.

e. An unknown mystical age.

f. No one knows.

8. Will I recognize my friends?

a. Yes. “We will know as we are known.”

b. Yes. “The graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised . . . and coming out of the graves after His resurrection” (Matt. 27:52-53).

c. We will know many people, but not everyone.

D. What Will I Be Like in Heaven?

1. Will I be perfect or can I displease God in Heaven?

a. At death we lose our sin nature. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

b. We are “frozen in righteousness.” Like the angels we will only do right things. Some teach that in Heaven some people will do more, know more, and grow more than others.

2. Will I know what is happening on earth?

a. Yes because, “We are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1).

b. No because knowing about the sin of loved ones would hurt you. “No crying” (Rev. 21:4).

You will not be omnipresent or omniscient. You will not know everything, but you will know things within your awareness and the events of earth will not be within your experience.

c. Potential knowledge you will see and know the things Jesus wants you to know.

3. Will I be married?

a. No one is married in Heaven. “In the resurrection whose wife should she be . . . in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven” (Matt. 22:28-30).

b. There will be a special relationship to your spouse. Since Heaven is an amplification of the joys of life on earth, you will progress from the point your relationship was broken.